In general, a heater device converts supplied electrical energy into thermal energy and heats a thermal medium including air using thermal energy.
For example, the heater device is mainly used in a hair dryer, an instantaneous water heater, a boiler, a dryer, a hot air blower, etc.
Most heater devices are configured such that a heating wire is manufactured as a coil and such a coil-type heating wire is disposed at the outside or inside of a specific case and contacts air so as to execute heat exchange.
Conventional technology using such a coil-type heating wire is described in a hair dryer disclosed in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1389878 (Publication Date: Apr. 29, 2014). Among the accompanying drawings, as exemplarily shown in FIG. 1, the conventional hair dryer has a structure in which a coil-type heating wire serving as a heating means is wound on a wing.
When an air blower fan is operated under the condition that such a coil-type heating means is wound on the wing formed of an insulating member and power is supplied, air contacts the heating means and moves and, thus, heat exchange is carried out and hot air may be generated.
However, the hair dryer having such a structure has problems, as below.
First, a large number of elements are required to generate hot air and an assembly structure is complicated, and thus manufacturing costs are increased and workability and maintainability are lowered.
Second, the coil-type heating wire is used to generate hot air and thus consumption of electrical energy is increased.
Third, the coil-type heating wire used as the heating means is easily cut and is formed of metals, thus lowering heat efficiency and heat exchange efficiency.